Alice is a fictional character, the child protagonist of Lewis Carroll's children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1871). The character has her origins in stories told by Carroll to the young Liddell sisters, Edith, Alice and Lorina, while rowing on the Isis with his friend Robinson Duckworth, and on subsequent rowing trips. Carroll wrote down the stories as Alice's Adventures Under Ground, which were later expanded into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. While Alice takes her name from Alice Liddell's given name, it is controversial among scholars as to whether or not Alice can be identified as Alice Liddell. Often assumed by scholars to be seven years old in the first novel, Alice is seven and a half in the sequel. In a retrospective article, Carroll characterized her as "loving and gentle," "courteous to all," "trustful," and "wildly curious".[1]

One of Carroll's drawings of Alice from Alice's Adventures Under Ground (1864)

Alice debuted in Lewis Carroll's first draft of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice's Adventures Under Ground (1864).[2] According to Carroll, Under Ground originated from stories told to the Liddell sisters during an afternoon[nb 1] on 4 July 1862[2] while rowing on the Isis with his friend Robinson Duckworth, and on subsequent rowing trips.[4] At the request of ten-year-old Alice Liddell, Carroll wrote down the stories as Alice's Adventures Under Ground, which he completed in February 1864.[4]Under Ground contains thirty-seven illustrations,[4] and as his drawings of Alice bears little physical resemblance to Alice Liddell, whose given name she shares, biographer Anne Clark has suggested that Alice's younger sister, Edith, might have been Carroll's model.[5] Carroll portrays his protagonist as wearing a tunic, in contrast to the "fitted children's dresses with soft trim" that the Liddell sisters might have worn.[6] According to Jeffery Stern, Carroll's illustrations drew influence from the Pre-Raphaelite painters Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Arthur Hughes, whose painting Girl with the Liliacs (1863) he possessed and visually alluded to in one drawing in Under Ground.[7] Carroll gave the hand-written Alice's Adventures Under Ground to Alice Liddell in November 1864.[8]

John Tenniel (1820-1914) illustrated Alice Adventures in Wonderland (1865) for a fee of £138, which was roughly a fourth of what Carroll earned each year and which he paid for himself.[9] Tenniel, who was forty-four years old at the time, was an already successful, well-known lead illustrator for the satirical magazine Punch,[10] when Carroll employed him as an illustrator in April 1864.[11] In contrast, "Carroll was a total unknown".[11] Tenniel took a drastic departure from Carroll's original illustrations,[12] although Carroll carefully oversaw his work.[13] Among Carroll's suggestions was that Alice should have long, light-colored hair.[13] Tenniel's depiction of Alice has its origins in a physically similar character which appeared in at least eight cartoons in Punch, during a four-year period that began in 1860.[14] In an 1860 cartoon, this character wore "the full skirt, pale stockings, flat shoes, and a hairband over her loose hair."[14] The character served as "one of Tenniel's prototypical representations of a nice middle-class girl," according to scholar Will Brooker.[15] Alice's clothes are typical of what a girl belonging to the middle class in the mid-Victorian era might have worn at home.[14] In The Nursery "Alice" (1890), (Carroll's adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for very young readers) Alice is blonde and her dress is yellow, with blue stockings; The Nursery "Alice" marked the first time that Tenniel's illustrations had been colored.[16]

Tenniel's illustrations for Through the Looking-Glass (1871): Alice and the White Queen (left) and Queen Alice and the Frog (right)

Tenniel's fee for illustrating the sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1871) rose to £290, which Carroll again paid for out of his own pocket.[9] Tenniel changed Alice's clothing slightly in the sequel, where she wears horizontal-striped stockings instead of plain ones and has a more ornate pinafore with a bow.[14] The headband that she wears in Tenniel's illustrations is called an "Alice band", after the character.[17] Her clothing as a queen and in the railway carriage is a " 'polonaise' dress" with a bustle, which would have been fashionable at the time.[14] The clothing worn by the characters in "My First Sermon" (1863) by pre-Raphaelite painter John Millais and "The Travelling Companions" (1862) by Victorian painter Augustus Leopold Egg have some elements in common with Alice's clothing in the railway carriage.[18] Carroll felt that some of Tenniel's illustrations of Alice lacked proper proportions, with her "head decidedly too large and feet decidedly too small", as a result of Tenniel's refusal to use a model.[19] According to Michael Hancher, the evidence is lacking for the hypothesis that either Mary Hilton Badcock or Kate Lemon served as the visual model for Tenniel's Alice.[20]

Scholars debate whether or not that the character of Alice can be identified as Alice Liddell. Some biographies, such as Morton N. Cohen's Lewis Carroll: A Biography (1995), identify the character as Liddell, writing that Liddell was Carroll's muse whom he had unrequited love for.[21][nb 2] Others, such as Karoline Leach's In the Shadow of the Dreamchild (1999), suggest that Carroll considered his protagonist and Liddell to be separate entities and that he was never in love with Liddell.[23][24] According to Carroll, his character was not based on any real child, but was entirely fictional.[25]

In Alice' Adventures in Wonderland, which takes place on 4 May (the birthday of Liddell)[26] the character has been suggested to be seven years old by several scholars,[26][27] although Carroll does not give the year which the story takes place;[26] Alice gives her age as seven and a half in the sequel, which takes place on 4 November.[26] In the text of the two Alice books, Carroll often did not remark on the physical appearance of his protagonist, offering only "very few details".[28] Details of her fictional life can be discovered from the text of the Alice books, such as that her governess teaches her lessons starting at nine in the morning.[29] Richard Kelly writes that Alice's "educated speech, dress, and surroundings, all testify to her upper-class character".[30]

When writing on her personality in "Alice on the Stage" (April 1887), Carroll described her as "loving and gentle," "courteous to all," "trustful," and "wildly curious, and with the eager enjoyment of Life that comes only in the happy hours of childhood, when all is new and fair, and when Sin and Sorrow are but names — empty words signifying nothing!"[1] Commentators characterize her as "innocent",[31] "imaginative,"[29] introspective,[29] and "witty and intelligent".[31] Others see less positive traits in Alice, writing that she frequently shows "casual cruelty" in her conversations with the animals in Wonderland,[32] takes violent action against the character Bill the Lizard by kicking him into the air,[33] and reflects her social upbringing in her lack of sensitivity and her "rude" replies.[33]

Set in summer, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland opens with Alice on the riverbank with her elder sister. She falls down a rabbit hole into Wonderland after following the White Rabbit. Meeting many characters and changing her size several times, she eventually finds herself at the trial of the Knave of Hearts as a witness. Ordered to leave by the King and Queen of Hearts, Alice argues with them, eventually claiming that they are just a pack of cards. As they swarm her, Alice awakens on the riverbank and realizes that it was just a dream.

Set during autumn, Through the Looking-Glass begins with Alice indoors as she plays with the kittens of her pet cat, Dinah. Through a mirror, she travels to Looking-Glass Land, an alternate world where chess pieces are alive. Encountering various characters, she eventually becomes a queen, and attends a party celebrating her coronation, although it quickly grows chaotic. Grabbing and shaking the Red Queen, Alice awakens back indoors, holding one of the kittens. The novel concludes with Alice's speculation on whether or not it was her dream or the Red King's.

One of Rackham's art-nouveau illustrations, in which Alice encounters the Caterpillar (1907)

Newell's monochrome illustration of Alice among the Looking-Glass flowers (1901)

The expiration of the copyright of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1907 resulted in eight new printings, among them one illustrated by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939).[34] Modelling Alice after young Doris Dormett, Rackham used an art-nouveau style, which sparked controversy among reviewers as to whether they were a better or worse interpretation of Carroll's work.[34] Other notable illustrators include Peter Newell (1901), who used monochrome; Mabel Lucie Atwell (1910); Harry Furniss (1926); and Willy Pogany (1929), who featured an art deco style.[35]

The first public stage adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice in Wonderland, debuted at the Royal Polytechnic Institute in London, England, on 17 April 1876, and continued until 19 August.[40] The musicalAlice in Wonderland, a Dream Play for Children, in two acts, an adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, appeared on 23 December 1886 at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London, and continued until 18 March 1887, to good reviews;[41][40] it starred Phoebe Carlo as Alice.[40] The musical was later revived and performed at the Globe Theatre from 26 December 1888 to 9 February 1889, with Carroll's friend, Isa Bowman, as Alice.[42] The musical was frequently revived during the "Christmas season," being produced eighteen times from 1898 to 1930.[43]Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has since been adaptated for various forms of the stage, including "ballets, operas, experimental theatre, Broadway musicals, puppet plays, mime acts, and rock musicals."[44]

The character of Alice has appeared in other literature, besides Carroll's novels. The premise of the young-adult fictionThe Looking Glass Wars series is that its warrior-princess protagonist and rightful heir to the throne of Wonderland, Alyss Heart, fled to Victorian England from Wonderland, where she met Lewis Carroll and told him her story, which he turn into a nonsensical fairy tale.[56] In Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's pornographic graphic novel Lost Girls (1991), she appears as Alice Fairchild, a central character.[57]Manga (Japanese comics) adaptions or reimaginings of the Alice books include Miyuki-chan in Wonderland[58] and Key Princess Story: Eternal Alice Rondo.[59]

"In all her different and associated forms—underground and through the looking glass, textual and visual, drawn and photographed, as Carroll's brunette or Tenniel's blonde or Disney's prim miss, as the real Alice Liddell [...] in novel, poem, satire, play, film, cartoon, newspaper, magazine, album cover or song—Alice is the ultimate cultural icon, available for any and every form of manipulation, and as ubiquitous today as in the era of her first appearance."[60]

—Catherine Robson, Men in Wonderland

Alice has been described as a cultural icon.[61][62][60]Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass were critically and commercially successful in Carroll's lifetime;[63] more than 150,000 copies of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and 100,000 copies of Through the Looking-Glass had been printed by 1898.[64] Since then, the Alice books have continued to remained in print and "have been translated into more than seventy languages".[65] As Sigler writes, "Carroll's independent, unconventionally inquisitive, and often bad-tempered protagonist has become iconic, as have John Tenniel's images of her, and a vast and profitable 'Alice industry' has continued to produce countless spinoffs and sequels, comic books and manga, cartoons and anime, stage and film productions, board and video games as well as a vast array of collectibles".[61]

Alice's continuing appeal has been discussed by critics. Biographer Morton N. Cohen suggested that an underlying subject of the Alice books is maturity; he writes that children can identify with Alice, and as she becomes more self-confident through her encounters with "a hostile, unpredictable environment," she gains "advancement, recognition, [and] acceptance" and the books ultimately reassure the child that he or she can mature into an adult.[66] According to literary critic Valerie Krips, Alice is familiar and unchanging for adult readers, as well as a reminder of the bygone Victorian era and a lost childhood, during which they discovered the Alice books, which their parents enjoyed.[67]

Some critics have highlighted Alice's character as unusual or a departure from the typical mid-nineteenth-century child protagonists. According to Krips, "Alice is a seditious character when compared to the children who precede her in books written for children. She cries, displays temper, is forthright, finds things and people tiresome—and says so—yet she always remembers her manners and speaks tenderly of her cat, Dinah."[68] Alison Lurie wrote that Alice, excluding her manners, defies mid-Victorian conventions of the ideal young girl: "she is not gentle, timid, and docile, but brave, active, and impatient; she is highly critical of her surroundings and the adults she meets."[69]

The cover of Clara in Blunderland (1902), a parody of Alice in Wonderland

During the half century after the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, "almost two hundred literary imitations, revisions, and parodies" appeared.[70] They featured one or more protagonists with characteristics similar to Alice's ("typically polite, articulate, and assertive"),[71] regardless of gender.[71] Notable revisions which explore the Victorian ideas on gender and childhood and feature protagonists "who demonstrate power over their fantasy adventures" include Mopsa the Fairy (1869) by Jean Ingelow, Speaking Likeness (1874) by Christina Rossetti, Wanted—A King; or How Merle Set the Nursery Rhymes to Right (1890) by Maggie Brown, and A New Alice in an Old Wonderland (1895) by Anna M. Richards.[72] Imitations inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and part of Carroll's collection of books similar to his Alice ones include From Nowhere to the North Pole (1874) by Tom Hood and Mabel in Rhymeland; or, Little Mabel's Journey to Norwich, and Her Wonderful Adventures with the Man in the Moon and other Heroes and Heroines of Nursery Rhyme (1885) by Edward Holland.[73][74] Among the recreations that use sentimentality are Davy and the Goblin (1885) by Charles E. Carryl and New Adventures of "Alice" (1917) by John Rae,[75] while the parodies, which were for adult readers, include The Westminster Alice (1900–02) by Saki, Clara in Blunderland (1902) by Caroline Lewis, and Alice in the Delighted States (1928) by Edward Hope.[75]

After the early 1930s, when the Alice books were considered to be serious, literary works for adults by modernists, fewer parodies and inspired works appeared.[76] According to scholar Carolyn Sigler, subsequent works inspired by the Alice books tended to be for adult readers, which "refer[...] minimally or obliquely to the Alice books"; examples include Dreamhouse (1995) by Alison Habens, Alice in Thunderland (1993) by Maeve Kelly, and Alice in Bed (1993) by Susan Sontag.[77]

^Although Alice Liddell and Carroll both recall that the day of 4 July was hot, cloudless, and sunny, the weather report suggests that it had been cloudy with a high of 68 °F (20 °C)[3]

^The hypothesis that Carroll was in love with young Alice Liddell originated from speculation in Florence Lennon Becker's biography, Victoria Through the Looking-Glass (1945). It has since been repeated in subsequent biographies of Carroll, although it has been challenged as one of the "conventionalized biographical 'myths'" surrounding Carroll and Liddell.[22]